Bangladesh

    German citizen citizen Piotr Szczepan Mazurek, who was arrested in connection with the recent ATM scam, has revealed names of 50 individuals and institutions who have link with the crime, police said today. The list includes names of local hotels and restaurants and goes even to implicate some musicians, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Monirul Islam said. We are now verifying the names he revealed during quizzing, the police official said while briefing reporters on the update of police investigation at DMP media centre. Piotr was among the four persons arrested over the incident. The three others were City Bank officials. The fraudsters swindled out about Tk 20 lakh from ATM booths in Dhaka.

    Bangladesh cricketer Shakib Al Hasan (C) celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of unseen Indian batsman Yuvraj Singh during an Asia Cup Twenty20 match at the Sher-e-Bangla National Cricket Stadium in the capital on Wednesday. Ace all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan became overnight villain after his drop cost Bangladesh heavily in the Asia Cup opener. Rohit Sharma was batting on 21 when Shakib dropped a straight forward chance at point off Taskin Ahmed's bowling. The Indian then took the game away with 83 off 55 balls. Sharma indeed paid Bangladesh for let-off, by blasting his next 62 runs off just 27 balls. This was undeniably game changer but Bangladesh captain Mashrafe Mortaza chose not to be harsh on the senior player, the lone Bangladeshi player who played all the dom...

    President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina place wreaths at the Central Shaheed Minar in the capital at 12:01am today to pay homage to the martyrs of the historic Language Movement. Despite the government’s resolve to have Bangla declared one of the official of the United Nations, it appears that there is a long way to go before the goal is achieved, thanks to some practical difficulties. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, in her speech at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2009, raised Dhaka’s demand to designate Bangla one of the official languages of the UN. She reiterated the demand at the UNGA in 2010 and 2011. At present, the official languages of the UN are English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic and Russian. According to foreign ministry officials...

    Underscoring the importance of learning mother language first, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina today urged all to be more aware to uphold the dignity of Bangla. “I call upon to all uphold the dignity of our mother language which we achieved in exchange for blood,” the Prime Minister further said. She said, “Our children must learn other languages. It’ll be the real education if they first learn mother language and then others. Our society must be more conscious in this regard.” Sheikh Hasina was addressing a function at the Osmani Memorial Auditorium in the city marking the distribution of Ekushey Padak 2016 among 16 eminent personalities for their outstanding contributions to various fields. Noting that many mother languages are losing their importance as people choose other...

    A citizen of East Europe is suspected to be involved in recent ATM card forgery incidents as detectives have already identified 4-5 foreigners through scrutinising video footages. We have already identified 4-5 foreigners, hailed from East European countries, by scrutinising video footages. Of them, one might have involvement in the recent ATM cards forgery, said DMP’s Additional Commissioner Monirul Islam on Wednesday. Talking to reporters at DMP Media centre, Monirul however said the detectives have not arrested the suspect as they need to be completely sure as the man is a foreign national. But they (4-5 foreign nationals) are now under surveillance of the detectives, he added. The official said a case was filed with Banani Police Station in connection with ATM cards fo...

    The cabinet today gave the final approval to the draft of the ‘The Bangladesh EPZ Labour Law, 2016’ keeping a provision for constituting labour organisations in the Export Processing Zones (EPZs) as well as forming a per-manent wage board for their workers. The approval came at the regular weekly meeting of the Cabinet held at Bangladesh Secretariat today with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair. Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam briefed reporters after the meeting. He said the law is going to be framed in light of the existing Labour Law 2006. It's consistent with the central bargaining agent (CBA) and trade union,  Alam said. Under the proposed law, he said, the family members of a worker will get compensation of Tk 2 lakh if he or she dies while on duty, and...

    Bangladesh Bank confirmed the freak transactions in six ATM booths in the capital on yesterday. The central bank in a statement said as per its collected information, the incidents took place in six ATM booths. However, it did no disclose the name of any bank in this regard. Meanwhile, it has been reported that the incidents took place at the ATM booths of Eastern Bank Limited on Friday by using duplicate cards of clients. The central bank said the money from the ATM booths was withdrawn by using duplicate cards collecting information of clients' cards and PIN numbers through installing video camera and skimming devices. Against this backdrop, it directed the banks to install anti-skimming devices, conduct regular monitoring of video footage, and not to allow any unauthorise...

    We won’t make any recommendation… it’s something to decide by the people of Bangladesh... it’s your decision as The visiting delegation of the European Parliament says in press conference on Friday 12th Feb 2016. The visiting delegation of the European Parliament favours some ‘agreed mechanisms’ well ahead of the next general election due in 2019 so that ‘many parties’ can participate in it in a free, fair and open manner with ‘maximum choices’, reports UNB. “It’s very clear there’s a need for some agreed mecha-nisms,” said Jean Lambert (Green Party), Chair of the Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia of the European Parliament, in the capital yesterday. Lambert came up with the remarks at a press conference before wrapping up their three-day visit to B...

    A high-profile Unesco delegation will visit the Sundarbans soon to assess the possible impacts of the proposed coal-based Rampal power plant on the world's largest mangrove forest. "Unesco wants to send its team this month (February) but we've requested them to be here in March next," Chief Conservator of Forests Yunus Ali told UNB. He said the Unesco team is going to visit the Sundarbans as it is a Unesco world heritage site. "The del-egation will assess the potential impacts of the proposed Rampal power plant and see what remedial measures have been taken to address the possible impacts." An official at Unesco Dhaka office said the delegation is coming in late February or early March this year. On December 9, 2014, there had been huge oil spill at the Shela River in the ...

    A global mobile phone giant has found in a new region-wide survey that 49 percent of school students in Bangladesh have been victims of cyber bullying in a way or the other, revealing that young people are increasingly becoming vulnerable to such harassment. According to the Safe Internet Study, conducted by Telenor Group, the students said they are either “being bullied or disturbed online” or “being bullied by the same person both online and offline” or they have actually engaged in the act of bullying others online per the anonymity of the internet. To better understand online behaviors, Telenor Group today released the results of its Safe Internet study, which examined internet safety knowledge among students across three of its markets in the region: Bangladesh, Thai-...